Art Dreher, 27, didn’t hold back when he described what he thought would have happened to ex-New Jersey Nets star Jayson Williams, whose manslaughter trial began in Somerset County yesterday, if he had faced a jury in the neighboring county.

“It’s a predominantly white area . . . very conservative,” said Dreher, a computer technician.

“He’s black, he’s an athlete, like O.J. and Kobe. They’d make sure he goes to jail.”

Dreher isn’t alone. Several blacks say Williams has a better chance of getting a fair deal since his trial was moved to Somerset County because the pre-trial publicity it received in Hunterdon where the shooting occurred might have tainted the potential jury pool.

The blacks think Somerset County is more diverse – whites make up only 80 percent of the Somerset County population compared to 93.9 percent in Hunterdon County – and as a result will be more open-minded. The 13.9 percentage-point difference also means minorities have a greater chance of being on the Williams jury.

“He’ll get a fair trial here,” said Clarence Bishop, 48, a laborer who has worked in the area for 25 years.

“He’ll be judged by what he did as a person not by his color.”

Bishop and others added that they’ve never encountered any kind of racism on the streets, in the stores, at the hands of the police or in the court system.

“I’ve been around here for many years and I’ve never heard of any black man being railroaded for anything,” Bishop said.

Blacks, some of whom complained about mild racial profiling on the road, say folks in Somerset County wouldn’t even panic if they saw an interracial couple.

“You don’t hear any stories about people being lynched for something they didn’t do or cops beating up on anybody,” said Kareem Archer, 21.